Sanjay Gupta, Kaante and Shootout at Wadala director, dies at 57

Sanjay Gupta, the filmmaker who turned gangster stories into slick, star-driven Bollywood events, died at his Mumbai residence overnight. He was 57.

Family sources and close collaborator Milap Zaveri confirmed the news. Versova police have registered an accidental death report and are investigating the circumstances. According to police, Gupta appears to have fallen in his bathroom and was discovered only in the early morning; no evidence of foul play has been found so far.

Filmmaker Ashoke Pandit said in a social media post that Gupta had died after a head injury at home. He described Gupta as “a wonderful narrator, a person full of life and a passionate filmmaker” and called the loss “another talent gone too soon.” Gupta was married to Anu Lekhi; the couple divorced before eventually remarrying.

A director defined by the gangster thriller

Gupta made his directorial debut with Aatish: Feel the Fire in 1994. But it was Kaante, released in 2002, that became his breakthrough. The ensemble crime drama featured Amitabh Bachchan, Sanjay Dutt, Suniel Shetty, Lucky Ali and Mahesh Manjrekar, and it gave Gupta a strong footing in the gangster-thriller genre.

• 1994: Directorial debut with Aatish: Feel the Fire
• 2002: Breakthrough with Kaante
• 2013: Comeback with Shootout at Wadala
• 2015–2017: Jazzaa and Kaabil
• Later: Mumbai Saga, Visfot and The Miranda Brothers

The fall and an unlikely second act

By his own telling, Gupta’s 25-year career was a story of “hits and misses.” Looking back, he said he was glad to have pushed through difficult phases and rebuilt his career.

After a fallout with Sanjay Dutt, Gupta said, 90 per cent of the film industry was unwilling to work with him. He was careful to clarify that Dutt never told anyone to stop working with him; people around the actor discouraged others from collaborating with Gupta. It became, in Gupta’s words, an “exceptionally low phase,” and he said he almost gave up on filmmaking.

For a while, he worked at a hotel in Khandala four days a week because he believed film offers would not come again. The birth of his son changed his outlook. Holding the baby, Gupta recalled thinking: “What am I going to leave for him? Since when have I become a quitter? I started at the age of 15 and made my first film at 22, so why was I ready to quit at 40?”

The comeback started with one call. Gupta had earlier discussed a sequel to Shootout at Lokhandwala with producer Ektaa Kapoor. He called her and said, “I am ready.” John Abraham and Anil Kapoor then agreed to work with him despite reportedly being advised against it. Anil Kapoor’s public statement, as Gupta remembered it, was graceful: he would step away only if Sanjay Dutt himself objected and gave a reason.

Why his loss hits home

For Hindi film fans who came of age in the 2000s, Kaante was a marker — a desi gangster film with international style but local texture. Gupta’s later films, including Jazzaa and Kaabil, kept him in the conversation, and his crime dramas were always unmistakably his: noir-influenced, fast-moving and unapologetically filmi.

After Shootout at Wadala in 2013, Gupta continued with Mumbai Saga, Visfot and The Miranda Brothers. Not everything landed, but the voice was consistent.

Source: India Today